Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
December 03, 2021 1:43 PM
I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! [Beginner potions.] by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
Mary didn't sprint through the halls but only because her home and her class were connected and she didn't have any halls to sprint through. She'd not really expected to be teaching today but plans had changed and she'd sent off a message to Tarquin to let him know she didn't need a sub after all at only the last minute. In fact, she wouldn't be that surprised if he showed up anyway, not having had a chance to see her message. She only hoped he hadn't done too much prep yet.She'd been off campus with Zeus and things were . . . well, they were looking better than expected, but certainly not like she'd hoped they'd look. She'd been in communication with Selina about her need to be away, both as her friend and as her boss, but hadn't yet had the nerves to tell her. She hadn't even had the nerves to tell Tabitha yet, which she was pretty sure was borderline illegal since they were joint guardians for Zeus. The way he'd looked up at her with such sad eyes . . .
She pushed the thought aside, determined not to worry for the moment. He was back in his room, being watched at the moment by a helpful elf so the boy could sleep instead of play for the duration of Mary's work day. And Tabitha's . . . right. Tabitha was still his parent too. It was easy to forget that.
"Hello, class," she said, forcing a smile that probably didn't look ingenuine to most of them; most students saw her smile so often that they just accepted it as part of the way of the world and didn't question when it didn't quite meet her eyes. Perhaps they didn't even notice. "I apologize for my tardiness," she added as she glanced at the clock, which showed she was arriving only one minute before class was meant to begin. They probably didn't think she was late at all, but it felt late to her.
"Today we're going to be working on a concept that touches on your studies in other classes. We'll be doing this a lot for the rest of the term and for the rest of your years at Sonora; no area of magic exists on its own and it is crucial to take it as a whole. Your subjects are only facets of your practice as a witch or wizard. Today, we'll be combining some of what we know with transfiguration, charms, and care of magical creatures."
She waved her wand to unlock the door to her storage closet, which had been altered to allow for proper care for the four white rabbits that hopped out of the room. They were very obedient - thank you, Lawrence - and hopped neatly into a cage Mary conjured for the center of the room.
"Professor Wright and Professor Skies are more qualified to teach you about the theory of magic behind the ideas we'll be working with, but we'll be considering a practical application and implication today. I encourage you to take notes on questions that expand beyond that and either I will answer them later or pass them on to get answers from my colleagues. You can turn questions in at the end of class and I'll get them back to you as soon as possible.
Each of these rabbits is different," she continued, gesturing at the identical creatures. "One was born a white rabbit, one was originally a white bird, one was originally a much smaller rabbit, and one was originally born a brindle - black and brown. Your task today is to observe them and collect small hair samples from each. Please be gentle with them. I will report back to Professor Marsh if I see any ill treatment of these creatures. You'll notice that it will be impossible for you to tell which one is which. You'll want to write down the number on their collars when you take samples so I can confirm your results later on. You'll use the hair samples in a potion later this week but for today, I want you to make observations and brainstorm with a classmate."
She took a breath, aware that a few students were trying to keep up on notes and others were wildly distracted by the fact that there were rabbits in the room now. They were cute and hilariously magical in the most muggle sense. "I want you to consider whether you think there will be any changes to the way their hair works in potions. We can't see the differences, but does the fact that one rabbit's hair has only been changed to white magically impact the use of 'white rabbit hair' in a potion? Or the fact that one of them had much smaller hair shafts originally and they've been grown into this size? Or that one of them was originally covered in feathers? We'll test your hypotheses later this week. For now, go ahead and get started. There are humane clippers at the front in a box - you'll only need a few hairs from each and you'll work with the same partner later this week - and some tasty snacks for the rabbits to keep them happy. Please be kind and respect their boundaries."
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Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! [Beginner potions.]
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Iris Cobb
December 05, 2021 6:57 PM
Bunnies? by Iris Cobb
Iris was a little worried that there didn't seem to be a teacher for the class today. At least she didn't see one when she entered the room. She found a seat and got ready nevertheless, perhaps that was part of the lesson for the day? Nobody had said anything, at least not that she'd heard. The other students were here as well, so she assumed she hadn't missed some announcement. A feeling of relief washed over her when Professor Brooding-Hawthorne swept into the room apologizing for being late.Class began and Iris was a mite bit surprised to see some rabbits in potions class. She could only think of a few reasons they would be here, and none of them seemed to be great situations for the rabbits themselves. Thankfully though the professor did have another reason for them to be in class without any of Iris' previously thought-up reasons. It sounded like a 'theory' class today, that was a little bit of a shame, she rather liked concocting potions. It sounded like that would come later though. Once the time came, she dutifully took her turn at collecting and properly labeling her hair samples.
Next came the part of class when she had to find a partner to work with. Who did she want to work with? She wasn't sure and so decided to take the easy way out. She found an empty seat, sat down, began contemplating the problem and waited for someone else to join her.
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Iris Cobb
Bunnies?
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Patience Reed-Fischer
December 23, 2021 11:11 PM
Bunnies. by Patience Reed-Fischer
Patience hated potions. It was gross and slimy and they worked with a lot of dead things. Patience had even begun to hate the smell of hot chocolate, a scent which wafted around the professor's office in all the many times Patience checked in on her relatively poor grades. It wasn't really that she was failing the class, and her theory was pretty good, but she mostly made terrible potions because she hated touching the stuff. The professor had actually even questioned whether she was cheating at one point because her homework was much more well done than her in-class work. Patience had admitted that she never let her brother do any of the actual work for her, but she did ask for his help touching things and moving them about. Turns out that still was technically considered cheating for some of the assignments, so she'd had to redo them.Now, the class had bunnies. Patience was pretty sure that was bad news for the bunnies - and for her - and she was actively holding back tears as she spiraled into the pit of anxiety that had formed in her stomach when the professor walked in. Her relief was palpable for a moment before she realized what this meant. Before, the idea of touching bunnies was great. It still was, in fact. But handling loose bunny hairs was still gross somehow. Who wanted to keep hairs in jars or bottles or whatever? It was awful, but it was less awful than a lot of the other things they could've been collecting or doing, so she didn't complain. Of course, Patience almost never complained anyway.
She set about her work in silence, a grim, determined expression on her face as she collected and labeled her samples. She was angling to take a seat alone somewhere in the back of the room when she tripped over someone's bag and knocked into an empty seat at a desk where another student was already sitting. The older girl was working on her own as well and Patience was horrifically embarrassed for tripping into the open seat even before the glass bottles she had collected flew from her hands. They didn't break, no doubt due to some magical reason, but they did get mixed up and since the labels weren't firmly adhered yet, it was now impossible to tell which was which.
"Oh no!" Patience cried softly to herself, tears springing to her eyes again. The professor didn't immediately get up but did look Patience's way and the young girl shook her head to dismiss the silent offer of help. Stooping to retrieve her vials, she looked up at the older girl she'd nearly slammed into. "I'm so sorry," she said, still trying not to let any tears actually come out. "I tripped and I--" She looked down at her hands. "And I'm missing one. I don't know which one." An unfortunate pout made its way to her face as she looked around, peeking under the desk to see where her missing vial had gone.
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Patience Reed-Fischer
Bunnies.
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Iris Cobb
December 27, 2021 12:59 PM
Okay, bunnies. by Iris Cobb
Iris' plan sort of worked. It wasn't a traditional way of picking partners, but the girl that had quite literally stumbled into the position looked like she could use some help. Iris instinctively glanced at her bag that the girl had tripped over, it looked fine, but she'd need to check it better later. Hopefully nothing got damaged because replacing things would be... difficult.Pulling her attention to the girl, she tried to give her an apologetic smile of her own. "It's alright, I guess my bag was sticking out farther than I thought it was." The girl, Patience, whom she was pretty sure that she was one of Billy's roomates' sisters, was almost in tears. Well, Iris had been brought up to be nice and helpful and kind, however she really wasn't sure this was a situation that warranted tears. "I'll help you look for it, don't worry."
A moment of searching later revealed the lost bottle of rabbit hair. Unfortunately, during the search Iris had time to check out her bag a little closer and noticed that a corner of her DADA book was now poking out through a torn seam. Well... if that was all, it wasn't to bad. She could fix that up tonight if it didn't get to much worse until then. She'd either get a little extra practice working on that mending charm or break out her sewing kit.
"Here it is," Iris handed Patience the bottle. "I guess you should get new samples?" Iris guessed, the entire point of the lesson was that they looked the same and it was impossible to look at them to tell them apart. "Mine are labeled, but I guess that won't help figure out which of yours came from which rabbit."
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Iris Cobb
Okay, bunnies.
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